Flagstaff City Councilperson Coral Evans joined the chorus of politicians and media politicizing last night’s NAU shooting by asking on Facebook:

“How is it possible for an 18 year old freshman to legally have a gun on campus?”

If Evans had listened to the police press conference this morning, she would have known that unless a firearm is locked away in a vehicle, guns are not allowed on the Northern Arizona University campus.

You can ban guns anywhere you want but that won’t stop criminals from bringing them in.

Well really, what do we expect from Coral? She’s already running for mayor (dear god save us all), and any chance she has to pontificate on some topic or another she’s going to take it. Just look at the last city council meeting in Flagstaff. Her comments were filed with rambles and rants with no sense of propriety or direction. All she offers is: “look at me, look at me, I’m smart so I’ll tell YOU what is best for you”. She is starting to become a real scold too.

But her comments on this shooting should really give us pause. They rise to another level (or should I say sink to a lower one?) When an elected official can’t even wait half a day to find out the facts before he or she starts railing against this or that freedom and spewing ignorant, ill informed rhetoric, we need to ask ourselves: “Is this the kind of leadership we want?” I suppose the same bothersome yet poignant questions that apply to Coral and her ill timed comments also apply to those that Mr. Obama made directly after the recent Umpqua shooting in Oregon.

My advice to both Coral and Mr. Obama is let a bit of time pass before you start politicizing things and telling us how we should be thinking and feeling, ESPECIALLY when you don’t even have all of the facts yet. Otherwise you just appear to be what one can only surmise you really are, political opportunists.